Daily Search Forum Recap: July 10, 2008

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Trends Displays Swastika
Earlier this morning, Barry reported (as per Dave Shaw) that Google Trends was displaying a swastika, which at one point was the Nazi symbol for superiority. I was able to find the trending myself just a few minutes ago: Why is it a hot trend? We're not sure, but Sphinn members hope that it's because the character is a religious Hindu symbol (or Chinese character). Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Poll: Do You Outsource Your Link Building?
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks whether SEOs perform their link building inhouse or if they outsource the link building efforts. Only two people answered the poll but both said they do it in-house. It's no surprise, really, since we covered this issue over a year ago and it's best to keep the link-building efforts in-house. Many companies (not all, of course) don't build the best links. It's up to you to find the

How Google Tells Us They Rank Results
On the Official Google Blog, Amit Singhal wrote about the Google Ranking. Rankings are broken down into three core parts, explains Singhal. First, the best relevant results are provided in what Google calls "no query left behind." Second, Google likes to keep it simple without compromising quality. Finally, Singhal says that there's no manual intervention. The rankings are powered by algorithms that weigh the behavior and linking patterns of people. The ranking discussion has moved

Googler, JohnMu, Working On Vacation
JohnMu, an SEO turned Googler, back in August of last year, has been one of the most active Googlers in webmaster communication in the past recent months. On July 4th, he announced he is taking a vacation until July 21st, but he hasn't. Since his announcement, he has posted in the Google Groups webmaster help discussion forums four times: SEO and Still a No-Showswf ad triggered "this site may harm your pc" ?Problem with Google

Are Google's Human Evaluators Coming From cart.corp.google.com?
There is no doubt Google has a human touch, we reported they may have close to 10,000 evaluators and their guidelines were leaked - so this is no secret anymore. The question is, how do you know if one of these evaluators are on your site, sniffing things out? A WebmasterWorld thread suspects that the Google evaluators come from cart.corp.google.com. In fact, WebmasterWorld administrator said he always sees the "first parameter" string along with a

Do Google Sitelinks Influence Your Search Rankings?
Google's sitelinks, which we have covered extensively are the little links you see under a search result in Google, typically between 4 and 8 sub-links. Here is a picture of our Sitelinks: A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about the importance of Sitelinks. Here are the key points: Sitelinks do not directly influence your search rankingsSitelinks can be removed but not changed via Webmaster ToolsSitelinks appear to be constructed based on your site architecture, as Google

Google Slaps AdWords Advertisers Again Over Landing Page Quality Factors
I am hearing major reports of a major "smack down" on Google AdWords advertisers who have been hit with major spikes in their minimum bids at AdWords. The increase in minimum bids seem to branch off the landing page quality score component, for virtually all advertisers who are complaining. The landing page component was introduced back in December 2005. The first major smack down was the AdWords Landing Page Epidemic of July in 2006, but